Connecting Laptop to HDTV

mercman1969

KillerWatt wrote: »

Dunno bud, I don't have time right now to read your user manual but I'll take a look tonight and let you know if you haven't read it for yourself in that time.


I'd personally forget using the lappy as a media centre and buy a dedicated media tank.

What on earth is a media tank:o

KillerWatt

mercman1969 wrote: »

What on earth is a media tank:o

Read the Popcorn page...NMT = Networked Media Tank.

2sides2everystory

Yeah I think he means something like this

I am not convinced - I might be wrong as I am a Johnny Come Lately to this type of tech but I think the most important thing about a so called media tank if you are into movies is that whatever you use as a media player it should be able to play all the various sound codecs and latest mkv files for example but is also easily connected to whatever else contains your media be it an external HDD via USB to the tank itself or a networked drive like your laptop. The Internet services the Popcorn thing can access easily look interesting but I think they are more or less the same as the ones that are built into the PS3 style Cross Bar menu on my Sony Bravia. So to a degree, the Media Tank is still a kind of add on solution isn't it? (Makes up for what your tv does not have built in?). My Bravia has Sony Entertainment built in, LoveFilm, Youtube, BBC iPlayer, Qriocity, Demand 5, Sky News, Eurosport, Billabong, blip.tv, Dailymotion, Howcast.com, uStudio, Golflink.com, Livestrong.com, SingingFool, Podcasts, Videocast.com, Tagesshau which I notice has a three minute article about Griechenland und something about ein Generalstreik, and also I haf Deutsche Welle should I feel the need .... never looked at even 20% of them ! I notice I don't seem to have CNN streaming .... I feel I am missing something now

In the the setup I was updating the other day, we had an old Mediagate Media Player (kind of a forerunner to the Media Tank but with limited streaming capability?) but it couldn't play the latest codecs, or mkv files and it wasn't very clever on the network when you wanted to transfer files to and from its onboard HDD.

It has a very useful terrabyte HDD however. It now has a new lease of life connected via USB of all things to the USB connector on the Sat Box which as an afterthought I think does have a built in firmware media player. The STB is itself is connected to the Onkyo via HDMI cable. We can now play the codecs and mkv files that until now were sitting redundant on the Mediagate that the Mediagate's own firmware could not handle, courtesy of the buckshee firmware in the Denver STB

The only downsides is that this was a cheap STB and it doesnt have RIHD so that means we have to have an extra remote to hand for it (ok and one to turn the old Mediagate on and off too )

KillerWatt

2sides2everystory wrote: »

I think the most important thing about a so called media tank if you are into movies is that whatever you use as a media player it should be able to play all the various sound codecs and latest mkv files for example but is also easily connected to whatever else contains your media be it an external HDD via USB to the tank itself or a networked drive like your laptop.

The Popcorn's play anything the kids throw at them, and they also play very nicely with Windows.
If another video/audio format should appear in the future, the manufacturer is quite quick to release firmware updates to account for this.